The Haunting
by Aria Illusine
Summary: Modern AU, Sakura is the granddaughter of a shaman, who doesn't believe she has any powers. But when the house she's just moved into turns out to be...already inhabited, the girl is forced to take matters into her own hands. ItaSaku KakaSaku NaruSaku


Oh thank GOD...it's DONE. I am soooo tired now after having rushed through finishing this! It's still rough around the edges and kinda took precedence over my next chapter of Belonging and Rose in Glass...but I REALLY wanted to finish this for Halloween XD

Now that I look over it, it's still too ramble-y, but I hope you guys enjoy it! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I tried not to be too cliche ^^ it's entirely possible to turn this into a chapter fic. I almost want to; the storyline's not quite as fleshed-out as it could have been (if I'd really tried to flesh it out...I would probably not be done two weeks from now...and the story would be a good 15,000 words...^^; )

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, no matter how much I wish I did.

Un-beta'd, but I'm going to have my lovely beta edit this for me and hopefully get it all cleaned up as soon as possible ^^ thanks for reading!

* * *

**The Haunting**

"This…looks like something straight out of a horror film."

"Thank you, Yamanaka Ino, for your two cents," Sakura replied sarcastically, fishing for the keys in her purse. "I thought best friends were supposed to support one another in their times of trouble."

"No, honey," the blonde corrected with a sympathetic smile, "Best friends are the ones who are honest with you when they think you're making the mistake of a lifetime."

The 23-year-old blew a stray lock of strawberry-milk hair out of her eyes in frustration, knowing she couldn't argue with the statement. Even she had some misgivings about the arrangement. But, it really was a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures.

With her two years of on-campus housing up, she'd had no choice but to look for a new place to live. Unfortunately, with Konoha University's influx of students, there were literally no available apartments. She'd been looking all summer with a growing desperation that bordered on panic, so she'd jumped on the chance of buying her current residence, in spite of it being strangely inexpensive for a three-story house. And despite the creepy exterior, it was close to her medical school and more than spacious.

Still, standing in front of it in the late afternoon, the sunset dyeing the clouds above a deep crimson, she couldn't help the chill that tingled her spine.

"Comforting," she commented briefly, sarcastically, as she slid the silvery key into the lock.

The door swung open silently under her touch.

Both girls fell silent as a chilling breeze swept them up in its icy embrace, issuing from the mansion like a frozen breath from the jaws of a beast. The interior was gloomy but ornately decorated with elaborate, scroll-pattern woodwork and fleur de lis wallpaper, the warmest feature of the entrance hall the beautifully woven, burgundy Turkish rug that trailed the length of the corridor.

Ino shivered. "Is this place always so welcoming?" she asked, rooted to her spot on the front step.

"I came to see the house before," Sakura replied as she tucked the keys away again. "A window was probably left open in the back when the previous owners moved out." She ignored the tremor that swept down her arms, stifling the urge to rub away the goosebumps.

"A window. Right," Ino muttered cynically as they stepped through the doorway. "You know, for someone who has a shaman for a grandmother, you seem completely insensitive to the supernatural."

The rose-haired girl's lips quirked into a wry smile. "Ino-pig, this is hardly supernatural. You're just creeping yourself out."

"Yeah, whatever you say," the blonde griped as she followed her best friend down the hall and to the main room of the mansion. She came to a halt in the doorway to the parlor, raising an eyebrow at the self-satisfied look on Sakura's face.

Knuckles rapped the open window that swept chill autumn wind through the house. "You were saying?" the viridian-eyed 23-year-old asked smugly as she closed and latched the aperture.

Ino rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay, moving on. Come on, I thought you said you wanted me to help you bring your stuff to your room. I can't help you out if I have no idea which room in this haunted house is yours."

"They're all mine," Sakura teased, slipping past her friend to lead the way to the stairs. "And stop making faces at me; you're just jealous."

"Of a spooky looking three-story mansion that has way too much Gothic architecture and enough fretwork of a sinister nature to satisfy the most maniacal haunted house decorator?" the blonde asked with a laugh. "Right. Forehead, the place is monstrous."

"My house is not _monstrous!_" the emerald-eyed woman yelped, quickly coming to her new residence's defense.

The two dissolved into snickers as they mounted the stairs to the second floor.

=*~*~*=

"Yeah, see you tomorrow for lunch," Sakura agreed, sighing as she finally hung up on her best friend. "You'd think since we just spent all day together she wouldn't _want_ to see me again so soon…" A small grin ghosted over her elfin features as she slipped into her pajamas and approached her bed. If she was perfectly honest with herself, the bed had been a determining factor in her decision to buy the house.

It was titanic in size, considerably greater in both length and width than a king sized bed. She was certain it would require a custom mattress should she ever need to replace the current one. A mahogany, four-poster, canopy bed, it was draped with silken fabric of the palest rose hue. The sheets were crisp cream-colored linen, the thick comforter over them a light, forest green filled with a chaotic array of gold and crimson autumn leaves.

Sakura slipped under the covers with a sigh of contentment, reaching down for the textbook secreted in her bag, only to find her fingers connecting with thin air.

"Where did…"

Her brows knit together in annoyance. _'Of course I'd just _have_ to be organized and uncharacteristically put away my textbooks in the library tonight...'_ Sighing in resignation, she slipped out of bed again, pulling on her rose-hued robe as she padded to the door.

Tiny shivers of nervousness swept down her spine at the gloom without.

"It's a good thing the library is only two doors down," she mumbled, flicking on the hall light. Shoving her hands deep into the dressing gown's pockets, she shuffled down the corridor, refusing to entertain the thought that the trembling of her hands might be from fear.

The walk down the hall took longer than she liked, treading gingerly through the dimly lit gloom to the half open door that led to the library. Scolding herself for not closing it fully, half open doors in semi-darkness made her feel about as creeped out about her own place as Ino had been, she flicked on the library lamps.

A luminous, golden glow filled the spacious room, making the long rows of bookshelves gleam in the lamplight. They were only half-filled; Sakura had a considerable collection of books and the previous owner had left quite a few behind as well, but the room was large and could have accommodated many more volumes.

Just the sight of the books warmed her against the chill of the room.

"I'm such a bibliophile," Sakura laughed softly to herself as she slipped inside and shut the door behind her.

The textbook she had been looking for was crammed on a lower shelf, several bookshelves from the door, between two larger tomes on neurotransmitters and brain functions. It took her nearly twenty minutes to find it, and by then she didn't really feel the urge to make the walk through the gloom-filled halls again so soon.

_'Maybe I'll just read it here…'_

Decision made, she hefted the thick volume and made her way through the shelves to the fireplace she knew was at the far side of the room. She and Ino had realized earlier that day that there was a couch, two armchairs, a coffee table, and a writing desk all in the far corner by the fireplace, arranged welcomingly on an ornate woven carpet under a bright chandelier.

The soft rustle of fabric against upholstery made her pause, a small frown wrinkling her forehead.

"Ah, a guest? Yo."

Blood drained from her face, leaving her dizzy with the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. Emerald eyes widened impossibly; the textbook slipped from nerveless fingers to slam into the hardwood floor at her feet. Terror strangled the scream that bubbled into her throat.

The man sitting languidly in the armchair closest to her jerked up, his spine straightening in surprise. "You…" She started, flinching back involuntarily. "You can see us?"

Tremors raced up and down her back, her legs numb as she tried to take a step back. Her lips moved; screams muted by fear.

_'H-he's…I…I can…'_

"Kakashi?"

Her eyes flickered to the couch, noticing for the first time a blond young man around her age lying across the length of the cushions, his cerulean eyes flickering with interest to the man in the armchair whose silver hair revealed only one wide, dark eye.

"You…"

_'Th-this…' _A strange sensation raced down her arms from her chest, settling as a pins-and-needles tingle in her palms._ 'I-It can't…'_

"Girl, can you see us?"

Sharp pain lanced through her lip as her teeth clamped down involuntarily to stifle a scream. A dark-haired man in his late twenties had risen from where he had sat unnoticed behind the writing desk. His obsidian eyes were intense, swirling with crimson streaks as he stepped towards her.

She found her voice.

A shriek of terror ripped itself from her throat, sending bolts of fear and adrenaline through her system.

On pure instinct, she spun around and fled.

Flinging herself from the room, she hurtled down the corridor, skidding to a stop at her own door to grab her bag before sprinting on to the stairs. Her heels slammed into the steps as she half-ran half-slid down the stairs. A hand grabbed frantically for the keys to her car in her bag. They connected, instead, with her cell phone.

Her fingers found the speed dial to her grandmother, and jammed the phone to her ear.

"Please, pick up! Pick up! PICK UP!"

"Sakura-chan?"

The door fought her as she shoved it open and sprinted down her driveway barefoot, the asphalt cutting the soles of her feet.

"Tsunade-baachan!" she yelped, breath coming in frantic gasps as she sprinted to her car.

"Sa-ku-ra!"

"Right, right, sorry, Tsunade-shishou," the rose-haired girl panted, correcting herself with a roll of her eyes as she flung herself into the driver's seat. Ever since her grandmother had discovered Sakura's shamanistic tendencies, she had forced her viridian-eyed granddaughter to call her by the other title, but at the moment Sakura hardly cared because she didn't seem to have been followed and that was the truly important point.

"So, dear, why are you calling me at two in the morning?" the woman asked pleasantly.

Stomping, barefooted, on the gas, the girl peeled out of her driveway and sped down the street towards her grandmother's place.

"I don't…I-I…person!" she stuttered. "People! I saw guys! Three of them! In the library at my new house!"

Tsunade, in spite of her quirks, was a skilled shaman and an experienced woman pushing sixty-five. So instead of panicking like her granddaughter, she merely nodded in understanding and got out of bed to pull on a dressing gown. "You wouldn't be calling me if you didn't think that there might possibly be a supernatural explanation for all of this. I'll see you in five minutes, Sakura, and stop driving over the speed limit."

The girl made a noncommittal noise and hung up.

Letting a wry smile flutter across her gracefully aged features, the woman made her way downstairs to put a pot of tea on to boil, rummaging through her liquor cabinet for some sake for herself.

"I guess Sakura-chan's dormant powers are finally coming awake, ne, anata?" she said calmly, pouring herself a measure of the amber liquid.

Beside her, a white-haired man chuckled in agreement, ethereal fingers placing a light pressure on her shoulder. "She is your granddaughter, Tsunade-hime."

The hazel-eyed woman laughed pleasantly, her own fingers ghosting over the translucent ones as she made her way to the living room. "She will be disoriented though, Jiraiya. Do you mind waiting out of sight until I explain things to her?"

Lips brushed her cheek lovingly. "I'll be in the kitchen," his reply echoed strangely through the room as he drifted away.

=*~*~*=

"Tell me the events as clearly as you can," Tsunade commanded gently, hazel eyes calmly watching her pale granddaughter over the rim of her sake glass.

Sakura nodded stiffly, nursing her mug of steaming green tea with a trembling air of nervousness.

"I…I was l-looking for m-my Introductory Diagnostics textbook in th-the house's library," she explained, aspen-leaf eyes growing vague as she tried to recall the last half-hour clearly. "I d-didn't feel like m-making my way back to my bedroom so I…I decided I'd read in one of th-the armchairs there…" The emerald eyes grew wide as she remembered. "But there was…there was someone already _sitting_ there! _Three_ someones!"

"In the same armchair?" the older woman asked wryly.

"No!" the girl burst out, agitated out of her earlier trance-like state. "One of them was in the armchair, another one was sprawled all over the couch, and the last one was sitting at the desk, but there were three of them for sure!"

"And…"

"And…I froze."

Tsunade raised a pale eyebrow, her expression quizzical, silently urging her granddaughter for more information.

"This…this feeling just…raced down my arms and tickled my palms," the girl's eyes were filled with meaning, questioning and uncertain, "and then I screamed and ran."

"Sakura…"

She buried her face in her hands with a distressed groan. "I _know._" She raised her head from her palms with a tiny whimper.

Piercing hazel eyes met miserable emerald evenly. "They were ghosts, Sakura," her grandmother said, sparing her no sympathy. "The spirits of the departed. I know you've been skeptical before but…"

"I believe you, Tsunade-shishou…" she sighed, voice heavy with resignation. The 23-year-old's shoulders drooped as she huddled deeper into the couch where she sat. "I know I didn't before but…I do now. He…they…they were…" _'Transparent.'_

The older woman nodded, her cool hand wrapping sympathetically around Sakura's warmed ones. "I know it's a lot to take in, but now that you've seen them…you have a duty to fulfill."

Confused eyes narrowed, the girl's strawberry lips thinning as she pressed them together in a frown. "A duty, Tsunade-shishou?"

"They weren't malicious spirits," her grandmother explained, "you would have been able to tell if they had been. But if that's the case, there's no reason for them to be on this earth unless there is something keeping them here." She smiled calmly, patting the stunned girl's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "But, we'll deal with it tomorrow, alright? Come on; let's get you to bed. I'll explain the rest when we get back to your place."

"B-back to my place?" Sakura repeated, nearly spilling her drink. "Wh-what do you m-mean, back to my place?"

The look Tsunade turned to her was no-nonsense. "You're not constantly living at my place, and we can't just leave three spirits here on our realm, so we need to head back to convince them to move on. Now stop gaping at me," she ordered with a strangely gentle light in her eyes. "There's someone I want you to meet."

She drew her granddaughter up by the hand and led the girl to the kitchen.

=*~*~*=

"Keep your eyes on the street, Sakura."

"But-!"

"Eyes on the road!"

Reluctantly, Sakura tore her eyes away from the ghostly vision of her grandfather, sitting almost too calmly in the back seat of her car, and turned her attention back to the street. It was still so strange to think that her grandfather still lived with her grandmother, albeit as a ghost, well after his passing.

It was almost, dare she say, romantic…

Of course, it hadn't gone down quite as well the night before when she had met him, again, for the first time in a long time.

Her cheeks flushed rosily as she remembered her bitten of scream when she'd first come fact to face with her grandfather's ghost.

"Ne, Sakura-chan, it was a natural reaction," her grandfather teased, easily guessing her train of thought.

"Yeah…" A thought fluttered through her mind. "Hey Ji-chan, how come I've never seen you when I was over at Tsunade-shishou's before? I was born with my powers, right?"

"Yes, Sakura," Jiraiya agreed evenly, "but they were dormant before. You can only see me now because your shamanistic powers are active."

"Does this mean I'll be seeing ghosts _everywhere?_" That thought wasn't pleasant, and definitely one she didn't need to have at nine in the morning, after six fitful hours of sleep and before her first coffee of the day.

"No, Sakura, you'll only see ghosts whose barriers you've crossed," Tsunade reassured her. "The reason you saw those three is because their domains probably all center around the house. As long as you're careful around graveyards, bridges, and other peoples' residences, you shouldn't have a problem. Make sure to remind me to teach you how to sense supernatural barriers later," she added as they pulled up to the house.

The girl nervously tucked a lock of her strawberry-milk hair behind an ear, unnerved by how normal her house appeared now in the daylight. She would have sworn the night before that the mansion had tried to keep her locked inside.

_'That's what fear does to you,'_ she thought with a wry quirk of her lips. _'Makes you hallucinate like an idiot.'_

"Hurry up," her grandmother called her patiently, beckoning as she stood by the front door. "The sooner we get this over with, the better."

"Explain to me this whole…barrier thing, please?" Sakura asked as she followed her grandmother, and her grandfather's ghost, into the house.

"A ghost grounded on earth has a specific domain that it can wander around; a territory of sorts. This territory is surrounded by a barrier, or border, that the ghost cannot cross. Humans, shamans included, can pass through a ghost's barrier without a problem usually, but crossing the ghost's barrier the first time is what allows a shaman to see said ghost," Tsunade told her as they slowly crossed the first corridor from the front door to the living room.

"Malicious ghosts can charge their barriers with energy to repel people…or keep them trapped within their domain."

Finding herself nibbling her lower lip at this unnerving piece of information, Sakura forced herself to stop as they trailed up the stairs to the second floor. "But…what about Ji-chan? He's fine…he's followed us all the way here…"

Her grandmother paused and smiled secretively before fingering the jade earring at her left earlobe. The green-and-umber stone was carved into the delicate likeness of an amphibian. "A spirit's domain is usually centered around a physical object. Jiraiya's is this toad earring he gave me for my birthday. Now hush," she admonished, taking her granddaughter's hand as the girl started to speak. "We've crossed at least three barriers so I'm going to call them here to the upstairs hall…"

"A-and Ji-chan?" the 23-year-old asked nervously, her expressive viridian eyes flickering from Tsunade to Jiraiya.

"Thanks for the concern, little one," the white-haired man laughed kindly, ghostly fingers ruffling her strawberry locks like he used to when she was little. "I'll be fine, I've done this before with your grandmother."

"Shh, both of you," the older woman ordered, trying to hide the grin that threatened to erupt over her features. "You're ruining my concentration."

Behind her back, the girl and the old man exchanged amused glances and smothered quiet laughter.

"Stop lurking around, I know you three are there so come out!"

"Obaa-chan!" Sakura yelped, startled out of politeness by her grandmother's no-nonsense manner.

Whatever sort of mystical summoning chant she had been expecting, it wasn't this.

She was about to add a comment about Tsunade maybe being more tactful in her word choice, but an eerily chill wind accompanied by a wispy billow of cold mist – indoors…how could there be mist indoors? – made the sentence lodge, unsaid, in her throat.

"Hello, Medium-san."

She'd been steeling herself for this point, knowing what she might encounter, but it didn't stop a jolt of trepidation from lancing down her spine.

From the icy fog, three figures stepped out of the gloom, and Sakura swallowed hard. _'This…is going to be harder than I thought…'_

Her racing heartbeat was loud in her ears as she took an involuntary step back, cold washing over her as she stumbled through her grandfather's ghost.

They were ethereal, transparent to the point that she could faintly see the pattern of the wallpaper behind them, the same three as she had seen the night before. Now, in the light that filtered faintly through the windows at the end of the hall, she took the chance to observe them, her curiosity somewhat overcoming her fears.

The one who had spoken looked…it was actually rather hard to say. The lower half of his face was covered in a dark cloth mask, and though his silver hair pointed towards an older individual, the little she could see of his face seemed too youthful for him to be any older than his mid-thirties. Mismatched dark-and-crimson eyes flickered to her and back to her grandmother in consideration.

Beside him was the dark-haired spirit who had sat at the library's writing desk. He was pale as ivory, crimson eyes sharp as he watched her. A shudder coursed through down her spine as she averted her eyes from him; skin feeling all of a sudden too tight. She didn't see the look that swept across his features, there and gone in a flash.

A blond stood in front of them; sky-blue eyes bold as they wandered from her grandmother to herself and back again. He looked the youngest of the three, hardly any older than her, and for some strange reason he was…smiling.

"You aren't malicious spirits, I can tell that straight off," Tsuande said plainly, her hands going to her hips as she glanced from one ethereal being to another, pinning them with her amber gaze. "You have no connection to this house – I'd have felt your chakra if any of you had been here before, you are not mindless wandering ghosts, and you aren't lost spirits who can't find the way to the next life. So why are you here?"

"Chakra?" Sakura mumbled softly, verdant eyes flickering to the snowy-haired specter floating beside her.

"The essence of a soul," he explained. "Both the living and the dead have chakra, and it leaves a sort of…awareness of where they've passed in life. You'll soon learn to manipulate and use your own chakra and see the chakra of others."

"I thought as much," Tsunade said sharply, catching their attention again. She had been talking to the ghosts during the short discussion on chakra, and her hazel eyes blazed with the knowledge of what she had learned. "Cursed. Simple but effective."

"We suspected," the crimson-eyed one muttered darkly.

The silver-and-blonde-haired woman nodded in agreement. "It might be damnably hard to destroy a soul already dead, but why bother when it's so easy to torment them for eternity with the right tools," she said dryly, more for Sakura's benefit than anything else. "Whoever did this most likely bound your souls to certain objects and hid them within this house to keep you here. And, even I can't free you."

The blond one swore acerbically, anger and frustration painting his bold, boyish features.

"Stop that, Naruto. Mediums aren't gods; we already knew there might be a chance we'd never be freed."

"Thank you," Tsunade said, inclining her head marginally to the silver-haired spirit who had calmed the blond, "but I think you misunderstand me. I cannot free you, but," she flipped a hand at the rose-haired girl beside her, "she can."

Three ethereal sets of eyes zeroed in on her, setting her cheeks ablaze as she tried to match their gazes. In seconds she knew she was outmatched; the heat and hunger in their looks was something she wouldn't be able to fathom. She was no ghost, bound to the earth without a chance of moving on to the next life.

She swallowed hard for the second time that morning.

_'This is going to be a LOT harder than I thought…'_

=*~*~*=

"Go on then, start with the library and work out from there."

Sakura nodded as Tsunade pulled her into a hug and her grandfather's ghost patted her shoulder comfortingly.

"You'll do great, little one," he reassured her. "We'll visit soon to check your progress, okay?"

"Okay," the rose-haired girl nodded, her voice quiet. "See you soon, Tsunade-shishou, Ji-chan."

"Are you worried, Tsunade-hime?" Jiraiya asked as soon as their granddaughter was out of sight.

The shaman extended a hand, her fingertips brushing through Jiraiya's spectral ones in a comfort-driven gesture. "A little, but Sakura is a strong girl. She's the one whose bound to those ghosts as the medium to first discover them; she has to be the one to break their curses but she doesn't think she has the power. She doesn't realize that she possesses greater supernatural powers than even I have at my disposal. I just hope…"

Ethereal thumbs brushed her cheeks lovingly. "She's our little one, Tsunade-hime," he assured her with a confidence-laden smile. "She will succeed without a doubt."

"Medium-san."

Tsunade sighed and pulled away from her ghostly husband, turning to face the specter that had intruded on their moment. Hazel eyes swept the slouched form and silver hair of a ghost she had only recently met. "Kakashi-san."

The tilt of his head was barely a nod, and for a moment she bristled at his lack of manners. After all, _she_ had enough power to do what the person who had cursed him had not and destroy his spirit, the last remainder of his being. "Was there something you needed?"

"The one who cursed us, the one who I suspect cursed us," he corrected, "was a persistent man." Sharp mismatched eyes steadily held the woman's amber gaze. "I know there is the possibility that he may still…be here in the living plane."

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. He was right, of course. While it was fairly easy to cast a curse such as the one that bound the three ghosts to this life, that much enmity left its mark on a soul. It was possible that the one who cursed them still wandered the world, and there would be no benevolence in him if that were so.

"Medium-san…the girl…the other medium. We will keep her safe."

Her eyes widened marginally, lips parting in surprise as the ghost of her husband beside her flickered with a curious mix of agitation and support.

"She is our way to the next life, and it was not her battle but ours. We will watch over her."

_'Yes…but you can only move so far away from the objects you are bound to.'_ She would have to discuss that point with Sakura later, but for now, until a better solution was discovered, it would have to do. "Watch over her, but understand that I will hold _you personally_ responsible should anything happen to her," she admonished with steel in her voice.

The nod of acceptance he gave her was the barest incline of his head, an unreadable smile on his lips. "Of course, Medium-san."

=*~*~*=

"Ne, Sakura-chan…what are you doing?"

The 23-year-old made a face as she peeled herself off the floor by the library bookshelves and turned her grimace to the blond male; Naruto, she'd learned his name was. "Just wondering if whatever it was you guys are bonded to might be under here."

It was a week later, and she was pretty certain she had torn up her entire house in the time she had between her med school classes, to no avail. The interior looked a good deal different now; lines of tape crisscrossed the floor and walls to denote how far her supernatural guests could wander. It was an easy way of telling where she needed to concentrate her search, her budding powers having not yet gotten strong enough yet to show her clearly where their individual boundaries lay, as well as a means for her to plainly tell where she could go without unwanted company following her.

It wasn't that she disliked them, as far as ghosts went she got the distinct impression that they were better than most, but the way they could so soundlessly come upon her still left her with faint chills when she thought about it.

She sat up, palming her chin in a hand as a sigh escaped her. "Nothing metallic, so no dice, I guess."

Naruto nodded in understanding. They had made a general estimation of how long ago the three had died, and their best bet was looking for something made of metal, something that would have lasted as long as their time spent captive on the living plane would suggest.

"No luck?"

The rose-haired head came up to face the mismatched eyes of the eldest of the three spirits, relatively speaking anyway. To her they were all really old… "Nothing, Kakashi-san. Sorry."

"Mm, well we have a while yet."

She nodded, getting to her feet with a small wince as her muscles protested. "A little less than a month…"

"Plenty of time," he reassured her as she sank into one of the armchairs by the fireplace.

"I don't know…if I haven't found anything yet and I've searched…everywhere…"

A light, cool pressure on her shoulder made her look up in surprise. Dark crimson orbs fixed her with a look that strangely comforted her, no hint of pity in his eyes. "We have waited decades…centuries…another year will not matter if you cannot find them by All Hallows' Eve."

Crimson dusted over her pale cheeks as she hastily tore viridian eyes away from the pale visage. "I…I know that," she stammered, avoiding his gaze as she tried to force her blush down. "But you guys have been stuck here for ages…I'd like to free you from the curse sooner rather than later."

The gentle pressure on her shoulder was back, though now it moved inwards to the juncture of her neck and shoulder like the touch of a masseur. "Thank you."

Her blush returning in full force, she coughed to cover her embarrassment and hastily pulled a history volume off the coffee table to hide her face in its pages. "You're welcome, Itachi-san," she told the book's intricate frontispiece. "At least while I'm not searching I can be doing research."

"That's impressive Sakura-chan," Naruto cheered her, laughing as he tossed himself to the unoccupied couch beside her. "You've been searching, researching, and studying as a medic constantly this last week! Don't you want to take a break?"

"I'd love one," Sakura admitted with a tiny chuckle, "but like I said, I want to break the curses soon. It's not just finding those objects. We need to know where you guys died to I can return you there. I don't want to just let it go now when I've got time."

"She's right, Naruto," Kakashi agreed, raising his head from a history with a strangely lurid orange cover. "It's best if we all help."

The blond made a face but picked one of the local histories from the pile on the coffee table to flip through the pictures in the hopes of finding something familiar.

A strange calm settled over them, a single human girl and the three male ghosts lazing by the library's unlit fireplace as they read in the afternoon sunlight filtering through the wide windows, time slipping by unnoticed until the sun sank to the point that it was hard to read in the growing gloom.

Rubbing her tired eyes, Sakura stifled a yawn and put down her history book. "Nothing yet?" She pouted a little at the negative answers and stretched sinuously. "Oh well, we'll try again tomorrow…"

She made her way to the writing desk.

"We'll definitely get something tomorrow, Sakura-chan!"

"I hope-,"

Her hand touched the desk.

A blaze of scarlet exploded out from under her palm, electrifying her as her cry of surprise filled the air. As if entranced, her fingers swept the smooth mahogany surface, catching on an intricate piece of scrollwork by the very lip of the top. A small compartment creaked open.

Silvery metal spilled out onto her fingers, making her gasp at the power that flowed through her, filling her skin until she glowed a vibrant garnet hue. A dark chain held three, circular disk-like medallions that clinked against one another as they flowed through her fingers, separated by several inches of chain.

"Wh-what…" she whispered as soon as the glow died.

She raised her eyes to crimson ones that penetrated her with a profoundly heartfelt gaze.

"This necklace…" his ethereal hands closed over hers in the gentlest gesture, "is mine." From beneath the high-collared shirt she saw the flash of a necklace of essence that was the twin of the one she held in her hands. "This is what I'm bound to…"

Sakura's eyes widened in understanding as her lips parted in surprise. "Itachi-san…"

He ruffled the ends of her strawberry-milk hair; she swept the strands up until they were out of his way on autopilot. The cold metal against her skin jolted her out of her trance. "What are you…?"

"You are the medium; keep the necklace until I need to move on."

As her pulse raced at her throat, her eyes drawn to Itachi's pale face as the other two ghosts watched on, she found her fingers creeping up to the chain around her neck, speechless.

=*~*~*=

"So are you going to tell me where we're headed? …Sakura…hey…SAKURA!"

"H-huh?" the girl in question asked, blushing as she focused on her best friend sitting in the passenger seat of her car. "S-sorry, Ino-chan, what did you say?"

The blonde pouted. "I asked if you were going to tell me where we're going," she repeated. "Seriously, why are you so out of it?"

"N-no reason…" It wasn't like she could tell Ino that she had come into her shamanistic powers and had a ghost sitting in the back seat, taking the scenery in with carefully concealed wonder. "I guess I'm just a little nervous driving out this way. I've never gone this way before."

"Which brings us back to my question," the cerulean-eyed girl pointed out with a smirk. "So?"

"It's…it's…kinda something Tsunade-shishou asked me to do?"

The effect of those words was instantaneous.

Ino straightened; fixing her friend with serious eyes that sparkled with excitement. "Supernatural stuff?"

"Yes, supernatural stuff," Sakura admitted, hiding a wince. Her best friend got a little too enthusiastic when it came to that stuff. Even Itachi had noticed it, she could see, if the tiny smirk on his lips was any indication. "Anyway, I just need to get to the field…"

The car broke through the sparse foliage covering the rough dirt road into the field…that could hardly be called a field.

The place was pitted and ravaged in places and was more of an overgrown clearing in the middle of the forest than a field though there was faint traces of furrows from long ago cultivation. But this was about the right spot according to the history text and her own search of the Konoha maps. This was where they had met their end: Naruto…and Kakashi.

The night before, Naruto had bolted up from his seat to shove a book into Kakashi's face, declaring that this was where they had died. Amid the havoc his declaration had caused, Sakura could remember being vaguely surprised at how easily the ghosts handled objects of the living realm. They were almost more like poltergeists than the typical idea of ghosts….but at any rate, she now knew where the blond and the silver-haired of her spectral guests had passed away.

She still had no idea where Itachi had died, and the ghost himself, seated calmly in the back of her car, had kept silent on the matter.

She killed the engine and stepped out, letting the cold October breeze sweep through her rose-petal tresses. "This is it…"

=*~*~*=

"Ugh, this is so _frustrating!_" Tossing the dust-caked rag over her shoulder, she burst into a fit of coughing that drowned out the rest of her angry rant. "It's like missing the very last piece of a thousand piece puzzle!" she snarked when she could finally breathe again.

"Sakura-chan, Itachi and Kakashi-sensei are right, you know. You don't _have_ to find our objects before this year's All Hallows."

It was just she and Naruto up in the cluttered attic of the house with nine days until Halloween; she had avoided that particular part of her home because it had been, by far, the creepiest place in the building, but a thorough search of the rest of the place had turned up nothing. She was getting desperate. It was also the only place Naruto alone could wander, and she was beginning to suspect that there was a reason for that.

"No, I want to find them…" she pushed another age-worn cardboard box out of the way.

"Slow down."

A shiver lanced down her spine as she turned slowly, eerily surprised by the commanding power in the youngest ghost's tone. "Naruto?"

"Sakura-chan, I know you take your duty seriously," he said, sky-blue eyes searching her green ones for understanding, "but you shouldn't put so much pressure on yourself. We are your first job…we understand that."

"I know. I know, and that's why…"

Cool thumbs brushed her cheeks comfortingly. "It's okay, Sakura-chan, we'll work hard…together!"

The blond's grin widened as she cracked a tiny smile of her own.

"Yeah…okay."

"Good! Now…uh…where should we start?"

_'Good question…'_ The place was huge for an attic, filled with strange objects like broken mirror frames and headless mannequins, as well as many, many, boxes. It was going to take them forever.

"Um…you start over here…I'll start here…meet in the middle?"

The air filled with dust as they began to inspect everything for a cursed piece of metal.

"Y'know, that's the nice thing about being dead," Naruto said conversationally as Sakura was attacked by her third coughing fit. "No lungs."

"That…is…so comforting," the 23-year-old rasped sarcastically as she wiped her streaming eyes. "Now shut up and-!"

She bit back a cry of pain.

"Sakura-chan!"

Making an angry noise of irritation, Sakura gingerly pulled the shard of glass from her palm, eyes already scanning about for anything to bandage her bloody hand with. She snatched up a pillowcase as Naruto started towards her, his insubstantial foot phasing through a small, lacquered, maple-wood box as he stood.

Ice-blue light shot up, blinding them both as the ghost cried out in surprise.

"Wh-what the-?!"

"Naruto!"

Sakura furiously blinked away the spots dancing in her vision, pillowcase pressed hard to her bleeding hand as she stumbled forward, half blind, to the 24-year-old ghost. "Naruto!"

"I-I'm okay," the spirit replied, appearing out of a corona of pale blue light with the box in his hands. "It was this…"

The girl opened the box with her uninjured hand.

Inside laid a rectangular curve of metal, pitted with small spots of rust from the passage of time. It rested on a moth-eaten bed of navy cloth, but she could tell that the quality of the fabric had once been very fine. A strange, stylized leaf was engraved on the still-shiny surface.

"Someone put this here on purpose…someone who really cared…" Her voice sounded barely above a whisper as her fingers gently lifted out the metal object, stifling a little gasp as more power sank into her being. It was calmer than last time though, as if her body had gotten used to the sensation of being filled with a strange spirit's essence. "Do you know who…" Her fingers scraped against a tiny carving on the bottom of the box.

She gently turned it over, squinting to read the antiquated lettering. "U..Umino…Iruka?"

"Iruka-sensei…" A heartbreakingly bittersweet smile curved the ghost's lips. "I'm glad you survived…"

Sakura gently placed the metal shard back into the box and slipped quietly away to allow the ghost to have a moment to himself.

_'I forgot how…lonely it must be…as a ghost.'_

=*~*~*=

"Sakura."

"Kakashi-san," she replied as she nervously nibbled her bottom lip. "Hey."

"Yo."

Having made her way to the end of the hallway, she made an about-face and made her way back.

"Sakura, you're going to wear a hole into the floor if you keep doing that."

"I can't believe you can be calm at a time like this!" the girl snapped back over her shoulder, emerald eyes flashing with nervous irritation. "It's already almost nine on Halloween night and I _still_ haven't found your object!"

"Maa, maa, it's fine…really."

She stopped dead, hands clenched at her sides as she turned slowly to face the ghost sitting with his back to the wall. "It. Is. Not. Fine."

"Um…"

"Forget it," Sakura groaned, falling into a cross-legged seat across from him. "I'm sorry…I just…I just wanted…"

Ghostly fingers against her lips made her jump in surprise. "Kaka-?"

"Shhh," he hushed her quietly, his mismatched eyes flickering from the door to her face and back. "Don't make a sound."

And for some reason she listened, her jade eyes widening as a jolt of fear skated down her spine. Her breath came shallow as her own ears strained to hear what the ghost before her seemed to sense.

"I think-"

The front door slammed open with a thunderous bang.

A shriek of fear forced itself out as she scrambled back away from the menacing darkness that boiled through the entrance. Her back slammed against the wall; she couldn't move farther back. The scream died in her throat as the ghosts of both Naruto and Itachi appeared beside her, joining the silver-haired spirit that shielded her from the _thing_ in the door with his translucent form.

The snarl that ripped from his throat was animalistic.

For a second she wasn't certain if her fear was directed at the darkness at her doorstep, or Kakashi.

"Danzou."

_'…Ka…Kakashi…knows that thing?'_

He fought visibly to control his fury. "You…did this to us."

And then she knew.

This was the spirit of the man who had cursed the ghosts who now resided in her house. This was the person who had sentenced them to torment. This was the root of all their problems.

The darkness coalesced into an aged man, his face distorted with hatred. Otherwise, she might have said he looked almost…grandfatherly.

"I did," he answered, each word dripping with harsh scorn. "I relished every minute of your pain. And you. Will. Never. Go. FREE!"

She was slammed back into the wall again, her head cracking hard against the woodwork as the force of his menacing fury _shoved_ her back. As she reeled dizzily from the semi-concussion, she noticed the fog of energy-charged chakra catapulting towards her.

"Sakura!"

Emerald fire erupted around her, thrusting the ebony-violet chakra back.

Her eyes widened in surprise as she stared back into Kakashi's mismatched dark-and-crimson orbs as he caged her body against the wall behind her. The verdant energy around her was his.

"Y-you…chakra?"

His eyes closed into crescents above the soft fabric of the mask covering the bottom half of his face. "Chakra manipulation was widely known in my day; when we get out of this, you should ask your grandmother to teach you about it. I think you'd have a real talent for it." His smile widened. "Half the chakra around us is yours."

"_Kakashi_."

"Well, back to the fray," and he was gone, leaving her feeling strangely lost as she watched the fight progress.

The malicious spirit, Danzou, flung shot after shot of acidic black chakra at them, the three other specters fending off his attacks with their own powers. Shouting and the roar of the wind filled her ears as the ice chill of the last October night hurtled through her front door. A cry of fear tore from her throat.

"Duck!"

The power of Danzou's blast shattered a section of the wall.

A dully shining something clattered against the floor, skittering across the lacquered wood until it came to a stop at her feet.

A strangely formed, three-pronged blade shone up at her, and, as if in a trance, she knelt and picked it us…

Power, strength, she couldn't have named it if she'd tried; it flooded through her, making her breathless with the force of it. It filled her to the brim and too much; it burst outwards, overpowering the ghosts and the dark spirit.

She blanked, vision going dark.

=*~*~*=

"Sakura!"

An incessant pounding brought her back, the harsh hammering waking her.

The voice calling her was familiar.

With a pained groan, she sat up. "Ino?"

The blonde burst through the door, shrieking in horror as she took in the carnage. "What _happened?!_"

Sakura looked down blankly at her hands. One clenched the strangely shaped blade, the other had somehow found its way to the curve of metal that she had taken to keeping in her jacket pocket. Itachi's necklace felt warm against her skin. _'Itachi…'_

Her eyes shot open wide. _'Naruto! Kakashi! Itachi!'_

And as if brought back by her mental call, their forms materialized, faint at first but rapidly growing more and more solid. Relief flooded her.

"I'm…I'm fine, Ino." The strawberry-haired girl pushed herself to her feet. "I need to go."

"You aren't going anywhere!" the blonde insisted angrily, her sky-blue eyes sweeping the ravaged hallway. "Not until you explain what happened!"

Sakura grimaced wryly. "Supernatural stuff, okay?" she answered tiredly. "I really need to get to that field we went to a few weeks ago."

Doubt and irritation swirled through the keen cerulean eyes that watched her like a hawk until, all at once, the girl came to a decision.

"Fine."

The girl dressed as a fairy pulled a flashlight from her purse. "I'm going with you."

"What?"

Ino leveled her with a firm glare. "You heard me. You're not going out to some weird field alone. I don't care if this is for supernatural stuff or not."

Sakura sighed as she disappeared into the kitchen to grab her car keys. "Okay, come on."

=*~*~*=

"Sakura…what are you planning on doing?"

"I told you," the 23-year-old sighed. "I'm going to guide three souls to the next life. My duty as a shaman. They're actually sitting in the back seat." She cracked a smile as Ino swung around in her seat.

"So just…let me do my thing."

She grabbed the blade and the metal rectangle, and stepped out of the car onto the dark field, followed by two of her three ghosts.

"Sakura-chan…"

The rose-haired girl tried to smile as she walked through the dark gloom to the small copse of trees that she had earlier ascertained as where Naruto and Kakashi had died.

"Sakura."

She took a shuddering breath and turned to them, dry-eyed. "Well…I guess…I guess this is it?"

The ghosts nodded, each facing her with a smile. It made her marvel how she could see them so clearly in the dark.

Naruto was the first one to step forward, wrapping ghostly arms around her body. It took only moments for Kakashi to tentatively join them.

Her eyes slid closed.

"Thank you…Sakura."

Her lips trembled as she tried to smile.

"You never gave up; you kept pushing yourself…thank you."

A feather light kiss to her cheek raised a lump in her throat.

"Goodbye."

Spectral lips brushed her forehead, fading away as the tears she had been holding back finally spilled over and down her cheeks.

When she opened her eyes, they were gone.

"…Goodbye…"

"Sakura?"

She dashed the tears from her cheeks as she turned and forced a smile. "I'm okay, Ino. Give me the flashlight, I need to make one more stop…"

The other girl wordlessly handed over the light, her blue eyes worriedly scanning the rose-haired girl.

"I'll be right back…"

"Are you alright?"

Sakura bit her lip, shining the flashlight before her as she tried to keep up with the ghost who effortlessly drifted before her to the place they had found a week ago. The place where _he_ had died.

"…No," she said at last, painfully honest. "I didn't realize how…close I'd gotten to you three in the last month."

"We never realize," Itachi told her gently. "Such a small amount of time often means so much more than we realize."

She nodded in reply as they forged ahead until Itachi came to an abrupt stop.

"Here." His crimson eyes flickered to the path she had taken. "Will you be able to return back to your…car…safely?"

She glanced behind her and returned a wan smile. "Yeah…I'll be fine."

"Then-"

His lips felt cool against her own, sweet and soft and lingeringly chaste.

Her eyes fluttered open, she hadn't realized she'd closed them, lips parting with vague surprise.

"Itachi?"

"Thank you, Sakura. For everything."

His voice faded away to nothing.

=*~*~*=

"So you're going to be okay?"

"I'm going to be fine," Sakura laughed softly, snuggling deeper into her warm covers. "It's been an entire week, Ino. I think I'd know if I wasn't going to be okay."

"Well…just as long as you're sure."

"I'm sure, I'm sure. Night."

"Night."

Sakura ran a hand through her hair as she quirked a wry smile at her wall. "She's so overprotective," she told it as her fingers crept to the drawer of her bedside table.

Inside was the kunai, the necklace, the engraved forehead protector.

A week after Halloween, she still kept them there, unable to let go. They made her feel…safer.

"Miss us?"

She choked back a gasp as her eyes flew to the door.

Three familiar figures stood, lounging almost casually against her doorway.

"Naruto! Kakashi! Itachi! You…you're here!"

And then she was across the room, falling into them, _through_ them, to collide with the wall behind, laughing and crying and too full of emotion to say anything.

Cool, spectral fingers laced through her hair sweetly.

"I guess," he told her with a smile filled with deep affection, "we found we didn't want to move on yet after all."

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

"Guys…"

Nothing.

She sighed, trying to squirm into a more comfortable position on the bed, to no avail.

"Seriously, guys…"

A warm, masculine voice mumbled in her ear as a cool arm draped over her waist, Kakashi's nose buried in her hair. Itachi's forehead pressed against her own, his hand resting gently against her throat. Naruto's head lay across her lower belly, pillowed against her hip.

A shiver crawled down her spine.

"Seriously, guys, I don't mind this arrangement but I'm _freezing!_ Can we at least pull up the covers a little? You have no idea how cold you specters are…"

* * *

Sooooo...yeah! Please do review! The muse (who now has a name!) would like cookies ^^ hopefully you guys enjoyed that, and if you want this theme explored in a chapter fic, please let me know!

Thanks a ton for reading!


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